Rebuild your craft

A workshop by Andrea Resmini

The Web is not just the Web. The Web is not just a library either. Organizing information is only going to take us this far. The Internet is not a different, separated world: physical and digital blend easily, and what we design is pieces of much larger mechanisms moving out of the screen and into the world.Information flows across multiple contexts through multiple devices and unstable emergent choreographies, in the blended spaces where we spend a large part of our lives. Are we ready to design this mess?

This is a practical workshop that brings to the table what architecture, urban planning, game design and filmmaking have to say when it comes to placemaking, IA, and cross-channel UX. We’ll discuss the methods and try out the tools and techniques these fields have long used to create a sense of narrative and place. We’ll apply them to the design of blended spaces, and talk and sketch and argue.

Who is this workshop for? If you think that websites is all that there is to your profession or education, this workshop is probably not for you. Especially since it might change your mind. But:

• If you see that it’s information all the way down
• If you want to operate at a different scale than the website
• If you understand the challenge of bringing digital into physical
• If you do not understand that challenge, but see it coming
• If you want to investigate which methods and tools could help you win that challenge
• If you have an interest in the specific languages of architecture, game design, or filmmaking

Why are you still reading? Sign up, see you there.

Session takeaways:

• Understand the systemic nature of the architectural approach as opposed to the focused attention of design;
• Understand the structural difference between designing punctual interactions as opposed to designing system-wide information flows;
• Understand the role of any object of design as part of a service-oriented architecture or ecosystem built on information;
• Acquire the base theoretical tools to ground design choices in complex systems;
• Learn how to frame our experience of such systems through placemaking and storytelling;
• Learn the base tricks of the trade from architecture, filmmaking and game design that allow us to create a sense of place and tell a meaningful story using information.